I spilt some water on my keyboard. Not a lot, it popped up when I opened the bottle. I wiped it away immediately, even gave the entire laptop a (to be honest, well overdue) clean and tried to get back to work.
Alas, the letter ‘v’ wouldn’t type. In contrast, the letter ‘n ‘ always came up twice. So I tried restarting, only to remember that ‘v’ and ‘n’ were in my password. After various, increasingly meticulously typed attempts, my account was frozen - for one, five and 15 minutes. I am now awaiting the seventh cavalry from IT. I can already envisage their wincing expressions when I mention water spillage. It doesn’t seem to matter whether your cup runneth over with water on to your laptop, or you throw it into the nearest reservoir, IT always shake their head, much like mechanics used to gaze on my dad’s old bangers and say, casually implying significant immediate expense, “It looks like the gasket’s blown.”
Let’s face it, technology is already restricting our options and taking control. I had to use some PDF software for the first time in a while and just to get it back up and running required various security codes, mobile numbers, password hints, text messages, requests to resend messages that never arrived and the inevitable (and irritatingly tricky) ‘are you a robot?’ photo grid. I was about ready to disclose my inside leg measurement when finally, whimsically, the PDF opened. As someone who has relied on digital technology to support the Mole family over the years, it goes against the grain to say this but are we suffering from too much of a good thing? Or is it a case of too much of a good thing badly used? The propensity of contactless payments to play up seems to be directly related to the length of the queue behind you at the checkout. Mole Jr got a fraud alert recently because he’d bought some DVDs for his degree (film studies - don’t ask) from a deeply dodgy company with an office in Luxembourg called, er, Amazon. And this is even before we start using AI. God save us - and all who sail with us.